ITV

Tag: The Times of India

  • Zee Media appoints Raktim Das as new CEO

    Zee Media appoints Raktim Das as new CEO

    MUMBAI: Zee Media Corporation has named seasoned media professional Raktimanu Das, popularly known as Raktim Das, as its new chief executive officer, effective 4 November 2025. His appointment follows the resignation of former CEO Karan Abhishek Singh.

    The company’s board of directors approved the appointment at a meeting on 3 November 2025, as per its filings with the BSE and NSE. Das has also been designated as key managerial personnel of the company.

    A media veteran with over two decades of experience, Das has worked with leading organisations including TV9 Network, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, Network18, Direct News, India Today, and The Times of India. His career spans revenue leadership, editorial strategy, brand monetisation, and digital transformation.

    Before joining Zee Media, Das served as chief growth officer (digital & broadcasting) at TV9 Network, where he played a key role in building high-performing teams and driving growth through innovation and intrapreneurship.

    A pioneer in the Indian media landscape, Das has been credited with creating industry-first branded content practices and media IPs across broadcast, digital, and OTT platforms.

  • Sharmila Bhowmick brews Mocha Ink for mindful stories

    Sharmila Bhowmick brews Mocha Ink for mindful stories

    MUMBAI: Stirring the pot in media and mindfulness, veteran journalist Sharmila Bhowmick has launched Mocha Ink, a storytelling ecosystem designed to blend creativity, journalism, and conscious living.

    The platform comprises three interconnected verticals. Mocha Ink Mag is a digital magazine that pairs intellect with aesthetics, covering business, culture, beauty, lifestyle, and the inner life of modern India. With a tone like a relaxed café conversation, it encourages readers to slow down, reflect, and consider what they consume and why.

    Complementing the magazine is Mocha Talks, a podcast for conscious conversations. Hosted by Bhowmick, the show invites thought leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs to share insights that linger long after the coffee is gone. “We’re bringing back the art of the conversation, the kind that changes you,” she says.

    Rounding out the ecosystem is Mocha Ink Lab, a strategy studio where editorial intelligence meets brand storytelling. The Lab helps companies, founders, and institutions craft narratives that build trust, visibility, and cultural impact, demonstrating that the story itself is the strategy.

    Founded by Bhowmick, an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of newsroom leadership across The Times of India, CNBC TV18, Business Today, Outlook, and Republic, Mocha Ink exists at the crossroads of content, consciousness, and culture. It aims to help both people and brands find their voice and vision in a rapidly changing world.

    With Mocha Ink, Sharmila Bhowmick is not just telling stories, she’s creating a space where stories spark reflection, connection, and transformation.

  • Vijayavani promotes Arun Karadi to senior vice president

    Vijayavani promotes Arun Karadi to senior vice president

    MUMBAI: Vijayavani, Karnataka’s leading daily, has promoted Arun Karadi to senior vice president, recognising his pivotal role in the newspaper’s rise to the top of the state’s media landscape.

    Karadi brings over 24 years of experience in media sales and management, with a track record of performance-driven leadership. Since joining Vijayavani in 2014, he has steered the publication to become Karnataka’s number 1 newspaper, combining editorial integrity with market-savvy initiatives.

    He started his career at Vijaya Karnataka, before moving to the VRL Group and The Times of India, where he honed his skills in sales strategy, brand development and team building. Known for driving advertiser engagement and fostering strong reader connect, Karadi has helped craft Vijayavani’s winning formula in a competitive media market.

     

  • RedFM names Sushant Singh Rathure deputy general manager–sales

    RedFM names Sushant Singh Rathure deputy general manager–sales

    MUMBAI: RedFM has appointed Sushant Singh Rathure as deputy general manager–sales. Based in Delhi, he will lead special projects in the north, oversee government and PSU accounts, and head the UP cluster.

    Rathure, a business growth specialist with nearly two decades in advertising sales and brand partnerships, moves from Music Broadcast Ltd, where he was associate vice-president, running RC Digital Labs and Radicity. He previously held senior roles at Bharat Media Group, Sony Pictures Networks India, Star India, and The Times of India, with a track record in driving revenues, scaling media businesses and launching new formats.

    This is Rathure’s second stint at RedFM, where he earlier led sales for the Mumbai station between 2019 and 2022. He credited RedFM’s chief operating officer, Nisha Narayanan, for the opportunity, saying her “faith and leadership” would inspire him to deliver “with greater dedication and passion.”

    A seasoned strategist with regional and national exposure, Rathure is known for building alliances, managing P&Ls, and blending creative solutions with sharp media planning. At RedFM, he returns to familiar turf, this time with a wider remit and higher stakes.

  • HT Media cashes in as Swapnil Ravindran takes charge of South revenues

    HT Media cashes in as Swapnil Ravindran takes charge of South revenues

    MUMBAI : HT Media Group has found its new rainmaker in the South. Swapnil Ravindran has been appointed chief revenue officer (CRO) for South, a role that will see him drive growth across Hindustan Times, Hindustan Hindi, and Mint. Ravindran, who took charge in August 2025, brings a two-decade career spanning Yahoo, Inmobi, The Times of India, and Kasturi & Sons, with a strong record of scaling revenue engines across print and digital. At HT, his mandate is clear: accelerate revenue growth, deepen advertiser relationships, and integrate strategy across platforms to bolster the One HT narrative in southern India.

    It’s a homecoming of sorts. Ravindran spent a decade at HT Media (2005–2015), rising from deputy manager to general manager. Since then, he has helmed sales at Yahoo, led national digital and print mandates at The Hindu Group, and spearheaded e-business and branch verticals at The Times of India. Most recently, he was associate vice president and response head at Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (Nov 2024–Aug 2025) and before that, director of sales (West & South) at Inmobi.

    Over the years, he has managed marquee brands, sharpened sales strategies, and built high-performance teams skills now directed at expanding HT Media’s footprint in one of India’s most competitive regions.

    Armed with a PGDBA in Marketing from VIT (1999) and nearly 20 years of leadership across advertising sales, business strategy, and digital transformation, Ravindran is expected to play a pivotal role in powering HT Media’s South operations to new heights.

    From Yahoo to Hindustan Times and back again, his journey is a story of full-circle ambition only this time, the brief is bigger, bolder, and distinctly southern.

  • Rituraj Dasgupta rises to GM & head of brand solutions at ABP Network

    Rituraj Dasgupta rises to GM & head of brand solutions at ABP Network

    MUMBAI: Rituraj Dasgupta has stepped into a new role as general manager and head – brand solutions at ABP Network, where he will helm the company’s freshly-minted Created Business vertical. 

    The mandate? 

    A sharp blend of content, creativity and brand strategy to deliver impact-driven partnerships.

    With over two decades of experience across advertising, media sales, and integrated marketing, Dasgupta now leads marketing strategy, client success, and partnerships at one of India’s leading media houses. Prior to this, he served as deputy general manager at ABP Group, where he steered content-led marketing solutions for national clients in West Bengal, aligning editorial insights with business outcomes.

    From stints at Mid Day, 9X Media, DNA, and The Times of India, Dasgupta brings a deep understanding of stakeholder engagement and revenue-focused brand narratives. His career has been marked by an instinct for building tailored solutions and measurable results — a trait likely to define the next phase at ABP Network.
    Now based in Mumbai and operating on-site, Dasgupta is expected to spearhead the network’s ambition to turn storytelling into a business engine.

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  • Network18 widens lead over Times Internet with digital and TV dominance

    Network18 widens lead over Times Internet with digital and TV dominance

    MUMBAI: If news were a contact sport, Network18 just scored a digital hat-trick while keeping its closest rival, Times Internet, firmly on the defensive. Network18 has cemented its status as India’s undisputed news juggernaut, clocking a towering 300.35 million unique visitors (UVs) in May 2025, according to the latest ComScore MMX data. With a 67 per cent digital reach, it outpaced Times Internet Limited by over 82 million UVs, with the latter trailing at 217.83 million UVs (48 per cent reach).

    The digital scoreboard shows a clear trend: Network18 has led for three straight months, with UVs peaking at 321 million in April and 315 million in March, compared to Times Internet’s 196 million and 203 million in the same periods.

    It’s not just the network flexing its muscles News18.com, the flagship digital brand, has been leaving The Times of India in the dust. With 245 million UVs in May, News18 maintained a consistent lead over TOI’s 200 million UVs. And the margin’s been widening: April saw News18 at 283 million UVs to TOI’s 173 million, while March posted 251 million vs 182 million, respectively.

    But the domination doesn’t stop at pixels. On television, CNN-News18 has held the No. 1 position in English news for over three consecutive years, a feat unmatched in the industry. In the Hindi news universe, News18 India remains the most-watched across the country. Add to that Network18’s reach across regional languages, and the brand’s influence begins to look not just dominant but pan-Indian.

    While digital players grapple with fractured attention spans and changing algorithms, Network18 seems to have found the secret sauce reach, consistency, and trust across screens, languages, and formats.

    In a media ecosystem obsessed with virality, Network18’s steady, multiplatform march to the top is less flash, more firepower. And in the battle for eyeballs, it’s clear who’s setting the pace and who’s still trying to catch up.

  • Google’s AI arm gets new marketing muscle in Anuj Gulati

    Google’s AI arm gets new marketing muscle in Anuj Gulati

    MUMBAI: Google has appointed a new ringmaster to its artificial intelligence circus. Anuj Gulati, a 12-year veteran of the search giant’s marketing ranks, has been tapped as head of global growth marketing for Gemini, the company’s conversational AI platform that aims to give ChatGPT a run for its money.

    Gulati announced his promotion on LinkedIn with the customary corporate humility: “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as head of global growth marketing, Gemini at Google!” The exclamation mark suggests genuine enthusiasm—a commodity as rare in Silicon Valley these days as profitable startups.

    The appointment comes at a crucial moment for Google’s AI ambitions. As the chatbot wars heat up faster than a neural processor under load, Gemini represents Google’s best hope of maintaining relevance in a world where users might soon bypass traditional search entirely.

    Gulati brings a developer-focused pedigree to the role. He previously served as group marketing manager for developer growth and performance, where he led global growth, lifecycle and paid media marketing for Google’s developer products across mobile, web and the increasingly crowded AI landscape.

    His career trajectory reads like a textbook case of corporate ladder-climbing done right. Prior to his developer marketing stint, Gulati spent nearly six years as senior product marketing manager for developer platforms based in Singapore, where he helped developers in India and southeast Asia “build great products and successful businesses” on Google’s ubiquitous platforms.

    Before joining the Google mothership, Gulati cut his teeth at The Times of India, where as head of mobile products he claims to have increased mobile traffic sixfold in just 12 months—a performance that likely caught Mountain View’s acquisitive eye.

    His CV also features a brief philanthropic interlude as head of marketing at Save the Children, sandwiched between stints at The Times of India, where he began his career as a brand manager after a short consultancy role at Tata Technologies.

    As Google continues its desperate sprint to catch up with OpenAI’s head start, Gulati will need to draw on every marketing trick in his considerable playbook. For while Google may have invented much of the technology underpinning today’s AI boom, it finds itself in the unfamiliar position of underdog in the race to commercialise it.

    Whether Gulati can help Gemini outshine its competitors remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: in the increasingly cutthroat world of AI, Google is gemini-ly serious about winning.

  • Vikas Purohit named CEO new business ventures at The Times of India

    Vikas Purohit named CEO new business ventures at The Times of India

    MUMBAI: The Times of India (BCCL) has appointed Vikas Purohit as CEO new business ventures, entrusting him with spearheading new growth initiatives. In this role, he will identify high-potential business opportunities, craft strategic plans, and lead execution to build scalable, profitable ventures.

    Purohit brings a wealth of experience, having previously led Meta India’s small business group, supporting over 10 million enterprises. He has also served as CEO of Tata CLiq Fashion and held key management positions at Amazon Fashion, Reliance Brands, and Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail.

    An alumnus of IIT BHU with a PGDBM from IIM Bangalore, Purohit’s expertise in digital commerce and retail makes him a formidable force in business innovation.

  • Vidhu Aul joins Responsible AI UK as partnerships manager

    Vidhu Aul joins Responsible AI UK as partnerships manager

    MUMBAI:  Vidhu Aul has been appointed partnerships manager at Responsible AI UK, where she will contribute to advancing ethical AI development, evaluation, and governance through strategic research-led initiatives.

    Aul brings over 15 years of diverse experience spanning communications, partnerships, community outreach, content creation, sustainability, and stakeholder engagement. Her impressive career journey includes roles at leading organisations such as Watatawa, NVPC, Edelman, BBC, and Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (The Times of India).

    During her five-year tenure at the BBC, she played a pivotal role in driving media partnerships and outreach initiatives for the dynamic South Asian market. She also led a global presenter publicity and brand positioning project during a secondment to BBC’s London headquarters, enhancing the broadcaster’s visibility in India.

    Aul’s independent consulting work further includes collaborations with Ogilvy Singapore, United Way Mumbai, CNN Create, and FSG. Her contributions extend to volunteer work with Futerra, UN Women Singapore, and the Singapore Tourism Board.

    Beyond communications, Aul has explored the transformative potential of AI for small and medium enterprises, focusing on enhancing product development and profitability. Her passion for digital innovation aligns with her recent certification in applied generative AI for digital transformation from MIT and SEO/SEM strategies from the London Business School.

    A passionate traveller, Aul has authored travel features for CNN, The Straits Times, Conde Nast Traveler, India Today, and other prestigious publications across Asia.

    Aul holds a double major in psychology and anthropology from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, along with a postgraduate diploma in social communication media. She is currently pursuing a part-time master’s degree in digital culture and society at King’s College London, set to conclude in 2026.

    Her appointment at Responsible AI UK marks a significant step as the organisation strengthens its mission to harness AI for ethical and responsible solutions.